Friendly’s Ice Cream warming up to supermarket sales

Fresh out of bankruptcy, Friendly’s Ice Cream warms up to supermarket sales

Friendly’s, the famed maker of Fribbles, is switching from scoops to supermarkets as a way to boost its struggling ice cream business and expand the brand across the country.

While the Wilbraham company’s restaurants have attracted attention lately for their failures - about 100 of 500 locations closed after the chain filed for bankruptcy protection in October - Friendly’s has been doing better beyond its own walls, signing ice cream contracts with major retailers such as Walmart and Food Lion. In the past eight months, Friendly’s products have been added to the freezer aisles of 3,200 more supermarkets, a 40 percent increase.